I’m posting here again to encourage and inspire hams to activate the SOTA (Summits On The Air). I hope others will join this aspect of ham radio especially if you enjoy the outdoors and need an excuse to go on a mini-adventure.
SOTA is not an especially common activity here in Houston. Why? Because there aren’t many summits in this area. The closest range of good places for SOTA is West Texas. This is where you’ll find many SOTA certified summits thanks to the millions year old volcanic remnants of the Guadalupe, Chisos, and Davis Mountain ranges.
Yep, it’s my 4th SOTA (and POTA) trip out to West Texas. This gives you a clue that its fun, exciting, and addictive.
For this one, I planned to climb and activate 2 new SOTA summits for my modest activation list. Why? To stay in shape, have fun, and marvel at how lightweight ham radio works outdoors.
As a consolation prize, I planned to activate a rare POTA site in the area. Besides a hard SOTA climb, it’s nice to do relaxing POTAs before and after the climb.
The planned itinerary
Being a novice and older climber, there are certain summits I’m only willing to tackle- ones NOT described as “extreme”, “strenuous”, “advanced” or “real fun”. I target the ones that have been already activated by others and documented with handy notes to confirm reasonable climbing conditions, and insights of warnings, hints, and suggested routes.
“3402” (named for its elevation in feet) and Kit Mountain were the 2 targets for this trip- both in the Big Bend National Park
Kit Mountain, elevation 3825 feet is classified as a bit more difficult, so I decided to tackle this first with an option to climb 3402 if my stamina would hold up (spoiler alert- it did not)
Getting to West Texas is a familiar car trip for me now. It’s about a 6 hour drive from Houston with lots of good gas station stops along the way. For this trip I planned to hit a rare POTA site on Day 1. It’s called Black Gap Wildlife Management Area (WMA), US-6540.
Located just outside of the eastern border of Big Bend park, it’s an out of the way spot that most likely isn’t on anyone’s favorite vacation planner. If you just want a desolate escape from the the world- this is your calling.
The mandatory sign-in sheet at the registration booth revealed I was the only current visitor in the 103,000 acres of park. This wildlife area shares 25 miles of the Rio Grande with Texas and the Mexican State of Coahuila on the southern and eastern boundaries.
The fun of traveling to rare and remote POTA sites is doing the due diligence of advanced research and access planning. Usually, these sites have varying levels of difficulty to get there, which explains their rarity. It’s fun to locate and review data provided by others to confirm the drivability of the terrain, public facilities if any, and shaded tables or camping sites for activation setup under tough weather.
The best I could tell from online satellite maps, a small campsite near the entrance was available with a table and shade. That was my plan.
I drove into the park with my tar heel 100HP-A screwdriver antenna installed on the trailer hitch of my Honda. If the 100 degree heat was miserable, I could simply park and operate at any location after entry in the park. Preferably yet optionally, I could erect my reliable Sotabeams 20/30/40m dipole hoisted up with my 30′ carbon fiber mast and supported by a $40 flea market purchased surveyor’s tripod.
For this trip, I took the effort to “improve” the tarheel antenna with a new grounding strap clamped to the car’s exhaust muffler. The hope was to eliminate the background RFI motor noise. After the aching efforts on my back underneath the car, it resulted in no difference at all. Back to the drawing board (alternator, spark plug lines?)
The benefits of having a ham radio while driving serves as an important remedy from falling asleep while driving long monotonous routes. The AM/FM/Satellite Radio (Sirius/XM) only works for awhile before it becomes a dull lullaby drone. Falling asleep is real hazard especially if you are pigheaded trying to get from point a to b without plenty of rest. Years ago, I fell asleep in two different times while on the freeway. One was an incident when I suffered “highway hypnosis” a hypnotic driving trance. I fell under the spell while driving on the LA freeway and suddenly found myself on a strange freeway miles from my regular route. I had no recollection how I got there, unless I was abducted by an alien and dropped off randomly on a different freeway.
Another more frightening incident was when I was awakened by the sound of rushing corn stalks hitting my car at 70 mph. The car headlights were bouncing off the dried yellow stalks as I mowed through the field, and the reflected lights shined back into the car like a stroboscope. For some reason, someone upstairs used the cornfield to softly awaken me, and to brake my car safely in the clutches of the corn stalks.
Listening to the 20m band opening while driving is an interesting exercise that also is a great antidote from falling asleep. The mind simply needs stimulation to keep the body awake. In the early morning (the worst case driving for me) I heard a DX net fire up their superstation beams and high power essentially opening the band. They would call out to distant DX that my screwdriver couldn’t pickup, except for rare occasions. Later I’d hear the sprinkled sprouts of various callsigns across the country as they would emerge from nowhere as the band skip began to awaken and stabilize.
Black Gap WMA is listed with only 14 activations since 2021. This was a rare site that I’ve wanted to activation in my past few SOTA visits here. It really is along an untraveled route, so I can see why there’s not been many activations. My goal was to put CW on the map for this site!
Upon entry into the park, I found a table and shade, exactly as I had spied on Google Maps from home. I decided to forgo the mobile operating in the car and get out and operate from the shaded table. My Yaesu FT-991A and 20aH Bioenno LiFeO4 battery produced a solid 100W of strong goo into the antenna. A fully charged HP laptop did the logging. This is a routine setup that I have used in many other POTA activations.
Photos below show the setup and the surroundings. Note- my Amphenol PL259 to BNC connector came apart. I carefully continued to use it, but wondered if I was losing some power due to some mismatching. Also, note the blood sucking hitchhiker that tried to steal a ride on my calf.
These photos below depict the wind fallen antenna and damaged mast.
The POTA station setup began quickly, but then erecting my telescoping mast, a strong gust of wind toppled it and split my carbon fiber mast. A spool of Blue Painters Tape, kept in the car for emergencies, was used to temporarily mend to the broken carbon fiber segment. Redeploying the mast ultimately worked after a couple of failed attempts. I began my activation and easily logged 72 QSOs, mostly on CW, my favorite mode. Before heading out to my lodging check-in, I QSYed to SSB but only made a handful of contacts. Band conditions on 20m was mediocre but that’s where CW shines, since its narrowband signals makes it a reliable and readable mode compared to SSB. Onward to my overnight stay in Terlingua.
During my last stay in Terlingua, I suffered 2 nights in a sketchy dive which had strict rules for the use of the commode. That is, soiled toilet paper was required to be discarded only into an in room garbage can for later disposal. I vowed to never doo this place again. I was seeking a different version of getting close to nature.
For this time, online searching led me to the Far Flung Casita lodging conveniently located near the entrance of Terlingua. Lodging availability was much easier since the 100 degree summer heat is a less popular time for visitors to this park
For your dose of history, Terlingua is an old mining community which peaked in popularity in the 1880s but became financially destitute in the 1930s. Little known during its day, the mining of the Mercury wrecked fatal health hazards for anyone who handled it regularly. Today it’s the key town for visitors’ stay when traveling to Big Bend and it boasts a Ghost Town with remnants of the old mining activities.
Far Flung Casita is gorgeous. It is a 5 star hotel compared to the Chisos Mining Company lodging from the past trip. I’m going to try to book this one for my remaining future WTexas trips. AC, ceiling fans, flushing toilets, kitchenette, nice wood paneling, TV, coffee, comfortable and clean. Having a nice place to stay really rests the soul after a physically active day.
For those with foodie interests, I was a regular to-go food customer at the Chili Pepper Cafe. Good Mexican chix enchiladas, cheese nachos, fresh salad. Perf!
After a good night sleep, I awoke on Friday morning 0400 to ready myself for the ascent of Kit Mountain and my 5W QRP activation.
Tons of research and review of route options were assessed like a football coach does when preparing to battle with the cross town rival. With the help of Mountaineering Expert, Dan Nagala KG5PVP, he advised me how to interpret topo contour maps for this ascent. He suggested that the best routes are based on your homework and seeing the route options real-time. I found that very sound advice.
The beauty of the rising morning sun behind the rocky mountains of Big Bend is one of Texas’ best nature experiences. I marveled at the diffused sunlight just barely peeking onto the twisty road in front of me.
The second photo below is Kit Mountain- the goal of my SOTA activation.
I arrived on location, at formal sunrise ~0715, and began my trek starting on the Chimneys Hill trail, where I would soon branch off to the left and approach the base of the mountain over unmarked terrain.
The sign below was prescient.
This is me chillaxed and ready to have an easy, well planned summit.
In my backpack: Elecraft KX2, GM0EUL miniature CW paddle, Panasonic Ergofit earbuds, Homebrew micro microphone, Heliox 1lb chair, Heliox 2lb table, Sotabeams Bandhopper II, Sotabeams Carbon-6 20 foot telescoping mast, and 60oz water, 2 fruit bars, 2 applesauce pouches, 3 meat sticks
Totally unexpected was the extensive foliage. Green growth of bushes, cactus, and variety of shrubs flourished across the baseline mesa. Flocks of yellow butterflies were busily socializing the air space, fulfilling their duty to pollinate all the flowered foliage. This was a stark contrast in all my past West Texas trips which were brown, dead, and rocky. Clearly this area enjoyed recent and sustained precipitation, despite the scorching 100F heat.
Departing as planned, from the Chimneys Trail path seemed like a straightforward and efficient trek directly to my targeted ascent point at the northeastern side of the summit saddle. If this was flat barren terrain, the hike to the mountain base should have been trivial.
However, there were numerous deep gullies formed from heavy water runoff. These gullies formed at the mountain base and extended like many strands of medusa’s hair braids throughout the lower flatlands where I was hiking.
These gullies were everywhere and most of them were 3-5′ deep with steep sides lined with needled cactus which made each crossing an effort to find a path into the trough and an accessible passage out between the heavy cactus along the banks.
So, my trek just to the base of the mountain became a disturbing and tedious obstacle course
After the repetitive difficult crossings in and out of these trenches, I finally reached the mountain base- my starting point for the ascent, but I was already relatively winded due to unplanned obstacle course exertion.
The ascent was relatively well planned and doable. The careful study of best routes to take paid off as the overall climbing was relatively gradual in elevation, avoiding steep cliffs.
For this trek, I stubbornly only took one hiking stick. The last time out, I summited Grape Vine mountain using 2 hiking poles. The use of 2 was awkward and non-productive. So, I went with one this time… only to regret it since for this different type of terrain, 2 were needed for stability and hoisting leverage.
Several paths upward required the crossing of a distinct rock flow of rust colored shale like rocks. These were extremely slippery and walking across them produced the pleasing sound of tinkling glass. I wish I had recorded the sound but was too transfixed in keep my balance and conserving energy to cross these rocks, otherwise know as scree or talus.
The photo below shows a very good representation of what confronted me during the ascent/descent of Kit Mountain. Either hiking across or along this bed of loose rock was highly difficult for the inexperienced hiker.
Ascent was slower than I had planned, due to the streams of scree and my already fatigued state from crossing the 1.5 miles of up/down movements through the flatland gullies.
2/3 of the way up, I relied on my lower (legs) body strength. When the legs fatigued out, I switched to the strength of my upper body pushing up on my hiking stick to hoist my tiring body. I improvised a second hiking stick by using a broken off wooden shaft from a large cactus.
I am thankful that I had conditioned myself with a daily routine of squats and pushups while walking the dog 2 miles every day. Yet, I’m still no longer in my youth and getting winded more and quicker than I can remember.
For snacks, I had my trusty Jack Link’s meat sticks, apple sauce, and a couple of zero sugar fruit bars along with 2 quarts of water. At the time, little did I realize how the fruit bars and apple sauce moisture content helped nourish my scary hike back to the car.
Getting to the summit was more difficult than I expected. The steeper inclinations along the way were expected, but the very loose scree and the unexpected foliage caused the ascent to go slow and tiring. Because a direct route to the summit was impossible, my planned path was to hike up to the lower saddle point between the peak and an adjacent smaller peak, which allowed a reasonable path upward. Reaching the saddle was tremendously satisfying, knowing the worst was over.
By this time, I was winded from the unexpected ground level gullies and the large scree-filled paths that I had to scramble up and through in my ascent. Even the scree fields were nothing like I experienced in past summits.
I finally reached the top and slowly approached a man-made landmark of a rock piled pillar. The rock pile demarked the summit! Exhausted and exhilarated, I lowered my fat ass on the rock monument for a respite of victory. Only to topple the rock pile and myself falling on my side into a small cactus patch. I didn’t have the upper nor lower body strength to soften my fall, so I simply fell over and layed in exhaustion on my side for a few minutes thankful of not being hurt, except for my pride.
After a few minutes of rest, I righted myself and erected my Sotabeam 20 meter dipole along with my great hiking companion, the Elecraft KX2. As done recently with the last few SOTA and POTA activations, I deploy my remote operating setup with a collapsible table and chair. The Table weighs 2 lbs. and the chair 1 lb. They are sooo comfortable and make the activation so enjoyable, that I gladly accept the extra 3 lbs. of luxurious comfort capability.
Try sitting on the ground or on a rought rock while operating for an hour and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
My first QSO from the summit was John AB5SS operating from the W5RRR shack in JSC. He was 599! That was sweet having a fellow JSCARC friend greet me on the air. A couple contacts later, Jayant KG5LJZ found me as well!
On 20m to get intermediate skip is always amazing to me, since usually one expects not to even have a path since 20m skip usually extends into the longer paths. I never would have guessed a West Texas to Houston path on 20m was possible, but this was not the first time that a path was open, as seen on other activations from W Texas.
I have now learned, after multiple SOTA activations, is that there is a very healthy group of active SOTA hunters who consistently and reliably hover for summit contacts. I easily made 20 QSOs on 5W CW, recognizing a few of the hunters. I also made 2 Summit to Summit contacts with fellow climbers on the east coast and even made a contact with F4WBN from France. I then switched over to SSB at 10W to make 3 QSOs on the upper part of the SSB 20m band to cap off the day. A good QRP showing within about 1 hour.
Already 2+ hours beyond my planned schedule, it was time to pack it in and enjoy making up for lost time via a fast descent down the scree. Well, that didn’t happen. It was hard to balance myself descending the steep inclinations and unusually unstable rocks. The slippage was significantly worse than previous experiences I’ve had. My expect plan for a fast descent turned into an agonizing crawl downward- falling on my tush many times and navigating difficult slides downwards in a slow deliberate fashion. The descent placed excessive force of my feet sliding into the toe box of my hiking boots. Later I would see the bruised toenails across my feet.
A more aggressive descent was also hampered by my tired lower body; I had to zig zag in switchback fashion down the slope. This pattern lessened the painful forces on my feet and legs. Finally, I arrived at the bottom of the summit; it felt great!
That exhilaration was short lived. I again had to traverse though the maze of meandering gullies to get to the car. The Up/down efforts to enter, decline, ascend each gully along the way was exhausting. Even though there should have been a line-of-sight view of my parked car, the gully builds ups, and foliage “foiled” my ability to see much beyond a few yards. I used my AllTrails app on my iPhone as a GPS compass to re-vector my position to the parked car as I slowly slogged closer to the car. But each time I had to enter and exit a gully, I became disoriented and began to question the pointing vectors to the car as well.
The photo is the only one I took which shows some of the gullies that have cut into the ground level terrain. This turned out to be the bane of the last leg of this trip.
I’m sure exhaustion added to my decreasing confidence in the iPhone app guidance to the car. It seemed that angle of approach shifted, and I began a very dangerous feeling of doubt and need for making new and different headings to at least find the main highway.
By this time my planned 4-hour outing had turned to almost 7 hours. My 60 oz (2 qt) of water was depleted, and I ate the remaining foods that has water content as well (applesauce). I couldn’t see my car, I doubted the GPS reading on my app, I began to see mirages of my car and reoriented to those images of false headings. The gullies continued to sap my energy, my legs were simply like jelly, yet I mentally kept putting one leg in front of the other.
I kept hoping to see a park ranger in their jeep who could offer me assistance. I had the faint thoughts of sitting down for a rest but was afraid of being unable to get up and resume. I continued the slow painful cadence of moving one leg in front of the other- knowing that was the only recourse.
Why was this so hard getting back to the car?!!! Where was the original marked trail that I veered off this morning? Half a dozen times, I forced myself to use mini bursts of sped-up pace hoping that the car was just over the next hump, but no joy.
It’s a blur how I finally got to the car, but I remember it was a slow and painful approach. No exhilaration, no celebration. I just plopped in and immediately grabbed the 2 quarts of water I had in the car. I passed out. 30 minutes later, I awoke finding the car engine running and the front door left wide open. I was grateful for getting back.
I began my 30 minute drive back into town to my lodging, but after 10 minutes my legs began to cramp. I veered off at a roadside pullout and got out of the car to stretch out the cramps. Both legs were getting worse, but I forced a slowly walk around the car and barely kept them from fully locking up.
The cramps didn’t get better, but I was able to drive with the driver’s seat fully reclined back, so the legs could be extended out. I rode back into town like a low rider slouched down. A few cars passed me since I was also driving back very slowly. I know they saw me low riding and probably thought I was just young punk driving fool. They were correct, except for the “young” part.
Gingerly, I finally got back and hobbled back to my lodging. I removed my shoes and quickly discovered that my toe nails were bruised black and blue from the graded sliding down the summit on the loose rocks. My calves were sandpaper rough from passing through cactus and dry debris. Several long cactus needles were pulled out of my legs. One long needle penetrated through my shoe and into my foot. Tiny and very annoying soft needles were pulled from my hands. The clothes were dusty and dirty, and a hot shower was a wonderous reward to a tough day at work. BTW, I also mustered the effort to buy a bottle of wine along the way, which I opened after the shower. 😉
After an awesome night’s rest, the next day, I decided to activate Elephant Mountain WMA, a nice POTA site which I previously visited twice before. It’s another relatively rare site which makes this a fun activation for the hunters. I poured RF into the air for 1 hour without a single contact. So, I packed it up and came home early.
Ham radio is like fishing; the worst day fishing is still better than the best day of work.
Overall, this was a ridiculously dangerous outing in many ways. I learned the hard way, by doing it. Doesn’t Nike say the same thing? “Just do it”. I did. I had a ball despite everything that happened.
I’m now recharged and ready to go back and tackle the other summit 3402. I’m smarter from this, so I’ll be looking forward to another adventure in a few months.
Thanks to ham radio, I’ll continue to add to my adventurous experiences.
73 Dave W5OC
P.S. I190 passes through some impressive Wind Turbine farms. Here’s a shot as I drove right by them
Wow, what an adventure. I’m glad that you made it back to your car.
Sheesh Dave, you were a hairsbreadth away from becoming another statistic!